Högskolan i Skövde

Purpose: This paper highlights the need for future studies researching the subject of resilience in family firms on different levels. Design/methodology/approach: This paper reviews the literature on resilience in family businesses. Findings: Resilience has become more important due to the recent multiple crises, starting with the coronavirus pandemic, followed by high inflation and energy prices, partly resulting from the war in Ukraine. These multiple crises affect the family and the business level. Future research must account for multiple levels when addressing it, i.e. the individual, the team, the family, and the business level. Resilience has to encompass all levels to sustain family business continuity. Originality/value: By giving an overview of the concept of resilience, taking the family's perspective, and suggesting future avenues of research, the paper contributes to the development of family business research. 

The purpose of this article is to identify different decoupling mechanisms and to conceptualize on how decoupling and possibly recoupling processes evolve over time. Drawing on case studies of eight firms from Germany and Sweden, the study presents different coupling mechanisms resulting in four configurations of coupling based on family control and involvement. the present study contributes to explaining how and why the configurations of coupling mechanisms change over time, as well as how and why control-based coupling mechanisms tend to dominate over those based on visibility. Furthermore, we formulate four propositions based on the configurations.

The purpose of this study is to understand how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use intuitive decision-making in times of crisis. The study was conducted among retailing SMEs in Sweden. In total, 28 store managers were interviewed in 2021, while the COVID-19 pandemic was still ongoing. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic forms an important context for this paper. Theoretically, the paper draws on intuitive decision-making, complemented by literature on crisis and organisational resilience (OR). The study finds that intuitive decision-making was common, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic-with store managers employing creative and problem-solving approaches to intuitive decision-making. The study thereby contributes to research on intuitive decision-making in a crisis context as well as to an understanding of the resilience of stores.

Purpose – This study explores how family firm retail managers orchestrate firm resources to adapt to shifting market dynamics.Design/methodology/approach – The present paper draws upon a case study approach, covering 30 interviews with family firm managers, along with archival material from 22 family owned micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).Findings – The findings suggest that managerial interactive orchestration capabilities act as key enablers shaping the evolution and configuration of resource orchestration (RO) practices in retail family firms.Originality/value – This study introduces the novel concept of family firm managerial interactive creativity to explain how retail managers shape distinct resource orchestration configurations for adapting to uncertain market dynamics.

Purpose: This article investigates how strategic flexibility (SF) is achieved in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), exploring whether SF contributes to firm growth and the associated enablers and barriers of SF.

Design/methodology/approach: To offer a more nuanced view of SF in SMEs, a qualitative approach is applied. Researchers conducted and analyzed 91 interviews with owners and chief executive officers (CEOs) of SMEs exhibiting high growth and explored whether SF contributes to firm growth and the associated enablers and barriers of SF.

Findings: The results show a connection between SF and firm growth and confirm the importance of strategic orientation for SF in SMEs. Contrary to the existing literature, this study found a neutral impact of external networks and a positive impact of slack resources on SF. The lack of competent employees emerged as a considerable barrier to SF in SMEs.

Research limitations/implications: More research focusing on the relationship between SF and firm growth is suggested, as well as further research about the relevance of slack resources and external networks as enablers of SF in SMEs.

Practical implications: Motivating and developing valuable employee competence are the key managerial implications. Additionally, business consultants and business developers in the public sector must find ways to increase business consultants and business developers' relevance to SMEs.

Originality/value: This article explores SF in SMEs, a context of disagreement in previous literature, and finds that SF contributes to SME growth. A qualitative approach is used, enrichening a field dominated by quantitative methodological choices. 

The article compares family small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from Germany and Sweden with a large family company in their work on corporate social responsibility and sustainability. This study aims to understand how and why (small) family firms work with sustainability. In total, 14 interviews were conducted with family firms in different industries. Large family companies are a benchmark, as they have worked with these questions since 2000. However, family SMEs also work with these issues. It is the family owner-managers who actively work with these questions. Accordingly, findings are of relevance for family firms and their managers, working with sustainability.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how the family firm identity is affected when it is no longer publicly communicated. Design/methodology/approach: A case study approach was used to follow a third-generation family business, a large Swedish home electronics firm that acquired a competitor and, initially, continued using its family firm identity after the acquisition. This study longitudinally tracks the company and its owning family using archival data combined with interviews. Findings: The case company decided to stop communicating their identity as a family business. Such a move initially appears counterintuitive, since it potentially threatens the family firm identity and leads the firm to forgo other advantages, e.g. in branding. However, the decision was based on arguments that were rational from a business perspective, leading to a decoupling of family and firm identity. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by showing a decoupling of internally experienced and externally communicated identities. It further contributes to the understanding of the family firm identity concept.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of communities of practice (CoP) as knowledge-sharing tools in family small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this context, CoPs that jointly involve family and non-family members are expected to act as knowledge-sharing tools. Design/methodology/approach: This paper employs a multiple case study methodology, analysing the cases of six small companies in different sectors and countries over a period of 8 years. Both primary and secondary data are used. Findings: The results show the role CoPs play in involving family and non-family members in empowering knowledge-sharing initiatives. A CoP's role in knowledge sharing depends on the presence (or lack) of a family leader, the leadership approach, the degree of cohesion around shared approaches and values within the CoP, and the presence of multiple generations at work. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the literature on knowledge sharing in family businesses, by exploring for the first time the role of the CoP as a knowledge-sharing tool, depending on families' involvement in the CoP. 

Purpose: This study explores how retail family firm managers’ cognitive capabilities are used to enable firm strategy in a context of economic uncertainty.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a case study using 31 interviews with family firm managers and archival data from retail micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

Findings: The results indicate how managerial cognitive enabling mechanisms shape the manifestation of retail family firm dynamic capabilities (DCs) configurations.

Originality/value: Three retail managerial cognitive strategic enabling mechanisms and their microfoundations are identified, explaining how three retail family firm DC configurations are shaped: (1) retail family firm customization-based sensing, (2) retail family firm lateral seizing and (3) retail family firm trust-based reconfiguring. The manifestation of these DC configurations illuminates how retail family firm managers can enable firm strategy in a context of economic uncertainty.

This paper reports on findings from a study of Swedish retail stores, with the aim of discussing the triggers and amplifiers by offering a nuanced perspective on the effects of organisational resilience (OR) of the COVID-19 pandemic on Swedish firms. The study is based on interviews with 28 store managers. Drawing on the concept of organisational resilience, we offer three contributions. First, we empirically and theoretically develop the discussion on triggers of OR. Second, we explain that the positive and negative effects of a crisis on particular firms' OR can be amplified (or inhibited) by certain factors, which we call the amplifiers of OR. These amplifiers include the retail industry sector, store location and type of ownership. Third, we empirically illustrate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions on the retail sector in a Swedish context.